Trade failure clouds climate talks and beyond

GENEVA, July 30 (Reuters) - The collapse of world trade talks deals such a blow to international negotiations that the prospect of agreeing effective solutions to global warming or the spread of nuclear weapons seems more remote than ever.

"If we cannot even manage trade, how should we then find ourselves in a position to manage new challenges like climate change?" said European agriculture chief Mariann Fischer Boel after talks at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva fell apart on Tuesday. "It is a failure with wider consequences than we have ever seen before."

Countries aim to agree a successor by the end of next year to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, a 1997 treaty which commits developed countries to limit greenhouse gas emissions and which expires in 2012.

Like trade pacts, climate agreements have to be reached by consensus -- something that has proven impossible among the 153 WTO members.

The Geneva failure augurs badly for United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen in late 2009, and for faltering global efforts to halt nuclear proliferation, highlighted by the dispute over Iran's atomic programme, analysts said.

"It will greatly undermine trust in multilateral goodwill," said Mark Halle of the International Institute for Sustainable Development. "Nobody thinks we can get a climate deal without overcoming the deep mistrust in the developing world."

The fact that the WTO's "Doha development round", touted as a way to help poorer countries get more from world trade, foundered on a dispute between the United States and and big emerging economies has hit hopes for a post-Kyoto deal.

"It will be extremely difficult (for developing countries) to rebuild their confidence in the multilateral system about the desire of the rich to do anything," Halle said.

BALANCE OF POWER

The rise of the big developing economies, Brazil, China and India, since the Doha round began in 2001, will also change the dynamic in climate talks, said Bruce Stokes, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

"Certainly India in particular will be a key player in Copenhagen," he said.

"China's last minute objections to a Doha deal underscore their leverage, that will of course be even greater," he added.

Under Kyoto, only developed countries have greenhouse gas limits, but at Copenhagen, developing nations with the fastest growing output of carbon dioxide blamed for global warming are under pressure to brake their own emissions.

India in particular is resisting any negotiated binding curb, and its firm line in Geneva -- where a dispute with the United States on protecting its farmers felled the trade talks -- suggests it may show little flexibility on climate change.

Persuading developing countries to accept emissions curbs is seen as vital to bringing Washington, which turned its back on Kyoto under President George W. Bush, back into a rules-based global climate pact.

Coincidentally, India is one of the emerging world's nuclear powers, which built an atomic arsenal in defiance of U.S.-led efforts to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

For some policymakers, failure in Geneva was a symptom of a major change in the global order, which is likely to be just as evident in climate talks.

"The collapse of the WTO talks is another sign of the decline of Western power," said a European Union official involved in policy planning. "It's no longer enough for the United States and the Europeans to agree on the objective in order to achieve the desired outcome."

The reluctance of emerging countries to accept curbs on greenhouse gases is another sign of the changing world order, which the EU official put down in part to opposition to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and a perception that Washington remains bogged down and unable to prevail in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

He pointed to this month's veto by Russia and China of a U.N. resolution to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe, and to persistent difficulty in persuading them to back tougher measures against Iran and Sudan, as signs of this power shift.

For the EU's trade negotiator, haggard and bitterly disappointed after nine days of ultimately fruitless talks, the failure in Geneva was a blow for those who hope the world can find consensus to solve global problems that affect everyone.

"We have missed a chance to seal the first global pact of a reshaped world order," said Peter Mandelson. "We would all have been winners from a Doha deal. Without one we all lose." (Additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Brussels) (Editing by Paul Taylor and Catherine Evans)

U.S. Economy: The Worst is Yet to Come

Mark Weisbrot
The Huffington Post
May 28, 2008

Since the U.S. economy showed positive growth for the last quarter, some commentators in the business press are saying that we are not necessarily going to have a recession, or that if there is one it will be mild. This is a bit like the proverbial story of the man who jumped out of a window 60 floors up, and then said “so far, so good,” as he passed the 30th floor.

The United States accumulated a massive, $8 trillion housing bubble during the decade from 1996-2006. Only about 40 percent of that bubble has now deflated. House prices are still falling at a 20 percent annual rate (over the last quarter). This means that the worst is yet to come, including another wave of mortgage defaults and write-downs. Even homeowners who are not in trouble will borrow increasingly less against their homes, reducing their spending.

President Bush says we are not in a recession. One commonly-used definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of declining output (GDP). The first quarter of 2008 came in at 0.6 percent, although it would have been negative if not for inventory accumulation. So by this definition we cannot say with certainty that the recession has started, although it could well have started this quarter. Of course, for most Americans it has felt like a recession hit some time ago, with real wages flat since the end of 2002, and household income not growing for most of the six-and-a-half year economic expansion.

The National Bureau of Economic Research will eventually decide on the official onset of the recession, but even its definition is arbitrary. All the indicators of a serious recession are swirling around us. The economy has lost jobs for four months in a row, which has never happened without a recession. Consumer confidence has dropped to a 28 year low - a level not seen since Jimmy Carter was president. Home foreclosure filings are up 65 percent over last year. And now commercial real estate prices are heading south, dropping 6.2 percent in the first quarter.

With oil prices hitting record highs, and the Fed beginning to worry more about inflation, more restrictive lending practices and other fallout from the credit crunch, the near-term economic future looks even dimmer.

Some look to exports to lead the recovery, but these are only 11 percent of GDP, and consumption is about 70 percent. Still, the fall in the dollar over the last six years is helping - making our exports more competitive and reducing the subsidy that we have been giving to imports for many years. In a sign of how economic illiteracy prevails in the United States, most people (thanks largely to what they hear and read in the media) see the dollar’s decline as bad economic news.

We are facing the prospect of millions losing their homes, their jobs, their retirement savings, their health insurance, and their livelihoods.

This serious economic situation greatly raises the stakes of the 2008 election. What will the government do to help the victims of economic mismanagement, to provide health insurance, and to restart the economy? Is it really more important to spend billions each week on the occupation of Iraq?

So far the government hasn’t done much. The stimulus package now taking effect, at about one percent of GDP and much of it likely to be saved, is quite small. The major legislation that Congress is considering for the housing crisis would mainly bail out lenders and investors while doing little for most underwater homeowners.

The voice of the people has yet to be heard on these questions in the halls of power. It had better get a lot louder, soon.

Professor: Big Money Behind Global Warming Propaganda

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Tuesday, March 11, 2008

A retired physics professor became the latest public figure to debunk the myth of a "consensus" behind man-made global warming when he slammed big money interests for pushing climate change propaganda that was at odds with real science in a speech yesterday.

Howard C. Hayden, emeritus professor of physics from the University of Connecticut, told a Pueblo West audience that he was prompted to speak out after a visit to New York where he learned that scaremongering billboards about the long-term effects of global warming were being purchased at a cost of $700,000 a month.

"Someone is willing to spend a huge amount of money to scare us about global warming," Hayden said. "Big money is behind the global-warming propaganda."

Hayden pointed out that global warming is taking place throughout the solar system, underscoring the fact that natural causes and not human beings are driving climate change, which has occurred throughout history.

"Yes, the polar ice caps are shrinking . . . on Mars," he said, "On Mars, the ice caps are melting and small hills are disappearing," adding that warming trends were also being observed on Jupiter, Saturn and Triton.

Citing the fact that human activity is responsible for just 3 per cent of carbon-dioxide emissions on earth, Hayden said that carbon levels in the atmosphere have been rising and falling for 400,000 years.

"We are at the lowest levels in the last 300,000 years," he said. "During the Jurassic period, we had very high levels of carbon dioxide."

"About 97 percent of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes from natural sources, not humans," Hayden concluded, adding that global warming is being pushed not by grass roots advocacy groups, but by giant corporations who stand to gain from selling concepts such as carbon tracking and carbon trading.

As we reported last year, During the secretive Trilateral Commission group meeting in March 2007, elitists gathered to formulate policy on how best they could exploit global warming fearmongering to ratchet up taxes and control over how westerners live their lives.

At the confab, European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberger and chairman of British Petroleum Peter Sutherland, gave a speech to his cohorts in which he issued a "Universal battle cry arose for the world to address “global warming” with a single voice."

Echoing this sentiment was General Lord Guthrie, director of N.M. Rothschild & Sons, member of the House of Lords and former chief of the Defense Staff in London, who urged the Trilateral power-brokers to "Address the global climate crisis with a single voice, and impose rules that apply worldwide."

A common charge leveled against those who question the official orthodoxy of the global warming religion is that they are acting as stooges for the western establishment and big business interests. If this is the case, then why do the high priests of the elite and kingpin oil men continue to fan the flames of global warming hysteria?

In his excellent article, Global warming hysteria serves as excuse for world government, Daniel Taylor outlines how the exploitation of the natural phenomenon of "global warming" was a pet project of the Club of Rome and the CFR.

"In a report titled "The First Global Revolution" (1991) published by the Club of Rome, a globalist think tank, we find the following statement: "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…. All these dangers are caused by human intervention… The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."

"Richard Haass, the current president of the Council on Foreign Relations, stated in his article "State sovereignty must be altered in globalized era," that a system of world government must be created and sovereignty eliminated in order to fight global warming, as well as terrorism. "Moreover, states must be prepared to cede some sovereignty to world bodies if the international system is to function," says Haass. "Globalization thus implies that sovereignty is not only becoming weaker in reality, but that it needs to become weaker. States would be wise to weaken sovereignty in order to protect themselves…"

The fact that global warming hysteria is being pushed by governments that have been caught lying to the public on a regular basis, along with elitists whose stated goal is to push fearmongering as a means of increasing taxation and control over our lives, emphasizes the reality that, allied to the its phony scientific foundation, global warming is just the latest hobby-horse on which control freaks have piggy-backed their agenda to dominate and rule.

Queen: “Rich Nations” Need to Sacrifice in the Name of “Climate Change”

Daily Mail
March 10, 2008

Rich countries need to do more to fight climate change because the worst-affected communities are often too poor to make the necessary changes, the Queen will say today.

She will use her annual message to the 53 countries in the Commonwealth to warn that environmental issues, such as the lack of clean water, could lead to future conflicts.

Her words are particularly aimed at the young, whom she says are leading the battle to save the planet.

However, there are doubts that her message will have as much impact as royal aides wish.

A survey for Saga magazine yesterday revealed that half of those aged 16 to 24 do not even know the Queen is head of the Commonwealth - compared with just one out of ten over-50s.

The monarch will say: "Awareness of environmental issues is now widespread, with a determination that future generations should enjoy clean air, sufficient fresh water and energy without risking damage to the planet.

"The impact of pollution falls unequally: it is often those who pollute the least - notably in the world's least-developed nations - who are closest to the razor's edge: most affected by the impact of climate change and least equipped to cope with it."

The Queen's environmental message will form part of the Commonwealth Observance at Westminster Abbey today.

She will talk about last year's meeting of the Commonwealth's heads of government on the edge of Lake Victoria in Uganda, where they agreed to work together on climate change.

"It was an appropriate place to do so," the Queen will say. "From there, the waters of the River Nile begin a three-month journey to the Mediterranean.

"A single incident of pollution upstream may affect the lives of countless numbers downstream."

She will add: "The example of the Nile illustrates many of the challenges facing the global environment.

"The competition for fresh water by a growing population is itself becoming a source of potential conflict."

Obama Pushes Bill That Would Mandate Global Tax

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
February 14th, 2008

Presidential frontrunner Barack Obama is pushing a bill that will lead to the implementation of a UN global tax, costing the U.S. at least $845 billion dollars over thirteen years in the name of fighting worldwide poverty, as well as banning "small arms and light weapons".

The "Global Poverty Act," which is sponsored by Obama, is up for a Senate vote today, and if passed would mandate the U.S. to spend 0.7 percent of the gross national product on foreign aid, on top of the money being sent out of the country already.

The bill passed the House by a voice vote last year because most members failed to read what was actually in it. The words "global" and "poverty" in the title were presumably enough to convince them that it must be good.

In reality, the bill also "Commits nations to banning "small arms and light weapons" and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child," writes Cliff Kincaid.

"Jeffrey Sachs, who runs the U.N.’s "Millennium Project," says that the U.N. plan to force the U.S. to pay 0.7 percent of GNP in increased foreign aid spending would add $65 billion a year to what the U.S. already spends. Over a 13-year period, from 2002, when the U.N.’s Financing for Development conference was held, to the target year of 2015, when the U.S. is expected to meet the "Millennium Development Goals," this amounts to $845 billion. And the only way to raise that kind of money, Sachs has written, is through a global tax, preferably on carbon-emitting fossil fuels."

A UN controlled global tax has long been a cherished goal of the elite and they have attempted to piggy-back it on numerous different pretexts, most recently via a global carbon tax on fuel, a move that was advanced at the recent summit in Bali.

During the summit, over one hundred prominent scientists signed a letter dismissing the move as a futile bureaucratic scheme which will diminish prosperity and increase human suffering.

In 2005, former French President Jacques Chirac called for the imposition of a global tax to finance the fight against AIDS.

Perfectly happy with giving Bush carte blanche to continue illegal spying on American citizens with the passage of this week’s telecom immunity bill, the Senate seems destined to rubber stamp legislation that would lead to a global carbon tax.

President Bush has overseen the biggest increase in foreign aid since the Marshall Plan and is highly unlikely to veto the bill if it is passed.

Contact the Senate and voice your opposition to this bill. Call the switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and asked to be connected to the office of your Senator.

Washington State to Levy “Global Warming” Tax on Drivers

KXLY
February 9, 2008

Vehicle licensing fees in Washington State could spike dramatically, all in the name of global warming. Six Seattle Democrats in the state Senate are trying to push through a bill that would require the Department of Licensing to collect a greenhouse gas tax. Sponsors say the tax in Senate Bill 6923 is an effective way to fight global warming by giving the state more money to fund transportation alternatives. If it passes, there will be an extra tax on your yearly license tab fees, based on EPA estimated miles per gallon your vehicle gets. The bill states vehicles getting below 15 miles per gallon will be charged between $200 and $240 extra every year. Vehicles that get between 15 and 25 miles per gallon, will pay $100 to $180 dollars extra every year. Vehicles getting over 26 miles per gallon, will pay between $40 and $100 extra every year. Vehicles that don’t have an estimated fuel economy rating will be charged a fee based on engine size.

CFR Climate Change Report

• 
• 
  

  • DOWNLOAD THE FULL TEXT OF THE REPORT HERE (138K PDF)

  "While not all of the costs of climate risk reduction will ultimately have to be
  shouldered by the government, some public resources will be needed, even if these are
  financed by revenues from a carbon tax"
  

Chemtrail Proof - German Military Exposed

You Tube
Tuesday December 18, 2007

The German Military are exposed spraying Chemtrails. This is a Mainstream Media Exposé. Here is the proof that brings this subject to the realm of 'Conspiracy Fact'

Small group of US experts insist global warming not man-made

Jean-Louis Santini
AFP
Monday December 17, 2007

Related: Skeptical Climate Scientists Shunned At UN Bali Meeting

A small group of US experts stubbornly insist that, contrary to what the vast majority of their colleagues believe, humans may not be responsible for the warming of the planet Earth.

These experts believe that global warming is a natural phenomenon, and they point to reams of data they say supports their assertions.

These conclusions are in sharp contradiction to those of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which reached its conclusions using largely similar data.

The UN body of about 3,000 experts, including several renown US scientists, jointly won the award with former US vice president Al Gore for their work to raise awareness about the disastrous consequences of global warming.

In mid-November the IPCC adopted a landmark report stating that the evidence of a human role in the warming of the planet was now "unequivocal."

Retreating glaciers and loss of snow in Alpine regions, thinning Arctic summer sea ice and thawing permafrost shows that climate change is already on the march, the report said.

Carbon pollution, emitted especially by the burning of oil, gas and coal, traps heat from the Sun, thus warming the Earth's surface and inflicting changes to weather systems.

Full article here.

Ban Urges Action as Climate Change Conference Gets Underway

voanews

By Nancy-Amelia Collins Bali, Indonesia 12 December 2007

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has urged the world to agree quickly on new negotiations to replace the Kyoto Protocol to curtail global warming. VOA's Nancy-Amelia Collins reports from the Indonesian island of Bali, where high-level meetings get under way at the U.N. climate change conference.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the U.N. climate conference, Bali, 12 Dec 2007

Secretary-General Ban opened high-level talks at the Bali conference by urging delegates from around 190 countries to push toward replacing the Kyoto Protocol by 2009.

The delegates hope to draft what is being called the Bali road map for new negotiations to replace the Kyoto accord, which expires in 2012.

Mr. Ban Wednesday morning called on nations to act swiftly in the fight against global warming.

"We gather because the time for equivocation is over. The science is clear. Climate change is happening, the impact is real, the time to act is now," said Ban.

For 10 days, scientists and mid-level government officials have met in Bali to prepare for three days of talks by senior officials. The major issue of dispute in the talks is whether to include targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which many scientists believe contribute to global warming.

New Peer-Reviewed Study Finds ‘Warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence

CFP
Tuesday December 11, 2007

An inconvenient new peer-reviewed study published in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology.

Climate scientists at the University of Rochester, the University of Alabama, and the University of Virginia report that observed patterns of temperature changes (‘fingerprints’) over the last thirty years are not in accord with what greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors, such as solar variability. Therefore, climate change is ‘unstoppable’ and cannot be affected or modified by controlling the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, as is proposed in current legislation.

These results are in conflict with the conclusions of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and also with some recent research publications based on essentially the same data. However, they are supported by the results of the US-sponsored Climate Change Science Program (CCSP).

The report is published in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society [DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651]. The authors are Prof. David H. Douglass (Univ. of Rochester), Prof. John R. Christy (Univ. of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson (graduate student), and Prof. S. Fred Singer (Univ. of Virginia).

The fundamental question is whether the observed warming is natural or anthropogenic (human-caused). Lead author David Douglass said: “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.”

Co-author John Christy said: “Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater. We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”

Co-author S. Fred Singer said: “The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep-sea sediments, stalagmites, etc., and published in hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals. The mechanism for producing such cyclical climate changes is still under discussion; but they are most likely caused by variations in the solar wind and associated magnetic fields that affect the flux of cosmic rays incident on the earth’s atmosphere. In turn, such cosmic rays are believed to influence cloudiness and thereby control the amount of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface and thus the climate.” Our research demonstrates that the ongoing rise of atmospheric CO2 has only a minor influence on climate change. We must conclude, therefore, that attempts to control CO2 emissions are ineffective and pointless. – but very costly.

Consensus Shattered As Major Scientific Study Says Global Warming Is Natural

Attempts to reduce CO2 emissions "pointless" as sun is cited as climate change culprit

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The so-called scientific consensus that global warming is man-made has been shattered with the release of a major new study backed by three universities which concludes that climate change over the past thirty years is explained by natural factors and that attempts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are irrelevant.

Climate scientists at the University of Rochester, the University of Alabama, and the University of Virginia report that temperature fluctuations over the past three decades are not consistent with greenhouse model predictions and more closely correlate with solar activity.

The report dismisses attempts to reverse global warming by reducing carbon emissions as ineffective and pointless.

Authored by Prof. David H. Douglass (Univ. of Rochester), Prof. John R. Christy (Univ. of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson (graduate student), and Prof. S. Fred Singer (Univ. of Virginia), the study appears in this month's International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society.

“The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming," said lead author David H. Douglass.

Co-author John Christy said: “Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater. We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”

Co-author S. Fred Singer said: “The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep-sea sediments, stalagmites, etc., and published in hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals. The mechanism for producing such cyclical climate changes is still under discussion; but they are most likely caused by variations in the solar wind and associated magnetic fields that affect the flux of cosmic rays incident on the earth’s atmosphere. In turn, such cosmic rays are believed to influence cloudiness and thereby control the amount of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface and thus the climate. Our research demonstrates that the ongoing rise of atmospheric CO2 has only a minor influence on climate change. We must conclude, therefore, that attempts to control CO2 emissions are ineffective and pointless – but very costly."

The findings of the report help to explain why we are witnessing climate change in almost every corner of our solar system, from Mars to Pluto, to Jupiter and to the moons of Neptune - and clearly identify the sun as the main culprit and not CO2 emissions - which are being used as a pretext for control freaks to completely dominate every aspect of our lives.

Man-made global warming advocates have often made their case by claiming that the scientific consensus is fully behind CO2 emissions as the main driver of climate change, when in fact the UN's own IPCC report was disputed by the very scientists that the UN claimed were behind it.

In reality, a significant number of prominent experts dispute the global warming mantra, but many have been intimidated into silence and had their careers threatened simply for stating an opposing view.

HAT TIP: Canadian Free Press

De-Facto One Child Policy Urged in Australia

Tamara McLean
AAP
Monday December 10, 2007

COUPLES who have more than two children should be charged a lifelong tax to offset their extra offspring's carbon dioxide emissions, a medical expert says.

The report in an Australian medical journal called for parents to be charged $5000 a head for every child after their second, and an annual tax of up to $800.

And couples who were sterilised would be eligible for carbon credits under the controversial proposal.

Perth specialist Professor Barry Walters was heavily critical of the $4000 baby bonus, saying that paying new parents extra for every baby fuelled more children, more emissions and "greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour".

Instead, it should be replaced with a "baby levy" in the form of a carbon tax in line with the "polluter pays" principle, he wrote in the latest Medical Journal of Australia.

"Every family choosing to have more than a defined number of children should be charged a carbon tax that would fund the planting of enough trees to offset the carbon cost generated by a new human being," said Prof Walters, an obstetrician at King Edward Memorial Hospital.

Sustainable Population Australia suggested a maximum of two, he said.

By the same reasoning, contraceptives like diaphragms and condoms, as well as sterilisation procedures, should attract carbon credits, the specialist said.

Full article here.

Student Confesses: Clinton Aide Fed Her Climate Change Question

911Blogger
November 13, 2007

On Tuesday, November 6, 2007, a House Homeland Security Subcommittee had a hearing on “Terrorism and the Internet”. The hearing featured presentations from several groups, including the RAND Corporation, and Mark Weitzman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The hearing was chaired by Democratic Rep. Jane Harman, and ranking Republican, Rep. Dave Reichert.

Toward the end of the hearing, Weitzman rolls out a PowerPoint presentation that presents a few 9/11 truth sites sandwiched in between websites that offer training in terrorist tactics, and a website that glorified the attack of 9/11. Among the websites presented under the heading “Internet: Incubator of 9/11 Conpiracies and Disinformation”, are Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and other sites, such as Killtown’s, who brought this Hearing to our attention.

Now, we wouldn’t want anybody getting the wrong idea here. Here at 911blogger we are opposed to any and all terrorist activities, including STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM. Don’t really care who the state is either. It’s all bad.

Californians, if Harman is your representative, please set her straight. Washington state, if Reichert is your critter, don’t let him absorb this crap with no static.

CSPAN has been more than fair to 9/11 skeptics. Last year they broadcast Alex Jones’ American Scholars Symposium, in 2005, they broadcast David Ray Griffin, and they will probably listen to feedback regarding this broadcast.

View the hearing as a video stream here — the pertinent section begins at the 43:31 mark, but I recommend watching the entire program, because there is so much disinformation in the broadcast itself, it’s hard to know where to begin unraveling it.

Homeland Security - Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_…

Please ask the Simon Wiesthenthal Center (Mark Weitzman in particular) to stop conflating terrorist violence with 9/11 truth, and even though he has not extended the courtesy to us, be polite;

Like Sacrificial Lambs Slain on the Altar of Globalization

Barbara Peterson
OpEdNews
November 5, 2007

Inmates of the dystopia prepare to voluntarily cull themselves off at the “Carousel” extermination ceremony, from the 1976 scifi film Logan’s Run

Are you ready to sacrifice your standard of living on the altar of globalization? That is what is happening at an alarming rate. We the people are being asked to squeeze our belts until it hurts so that the global elite can continue their lavish lifestyle all at our expense. Woodstoves are being regulated out of existence, older cars are on the chopping block, and we are instructed to use mass transit or ride a bike. Wouldn’t you like to see Dick Cheney or Condi Rice riding a bike to the White House? I would. The likelihood of that happening? Don’t hold your breath.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am for doing as much as we can to eliminate pollution and help stop global warming, but pinching the little guy for all he’s worth is not the solution. Targeting the major corporations as well as governmental agencies and suicidal policies responsible for most of the crud in our environment would seem to be the solution. Soon the older cars that the poorer among us drive will be outlawed due to smog issues. Sorry, but if you cannot afford to get a new car, you will have to walk. Yet, businessmen take airplanes everyday for their corporate masters. Billionaires burn thousands of gallons of fuel daily just for fun. These same people blame the average Joe for global warming and force us into untenable positions while gluttonously consuming petrol and traveling the world to educate the masses regarding the ethical use of fossil fuel products. Their mantra of “stop using the oil so we can use it” is beating us to death. Why don’t the super-rich decide to not fly for one day. I am sure that the emission savings will be sufficient to allow thousands of regular people to go to work, get to the store for groceries, and take their parents to the hospital without putting a dent in the ozone. Is that too much to ask? Evidently so. The great unwashed do not count in the grand scheme of things except as pawns for the “greater good.” But just whom are we sacrificing for? That is the million-dollar question.

In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…The real enemy, then, is humanity itself….Bring the divided nation together to face an outside enemy, either a real one or else one INVENTED for the purpose…(The First Global Revolution: A Report by the Council of Rome) (Aftermath News, 2007).

To the global elite, we are the enemy. Therefore, it becomes necessary to manufacture a common enemy that will take our minds off the target, and redirect our energies into fighting a strawman - a manufactured enemy that does not exist. It doesn’t matter if the enemy is real or manufactured. Do we need to cut down on pollution? Yes. Do we need to be concerned about our planet? Yes – we always have. Are we the people the primary polluters? No. Yet we are asked to fight the strawman so that big business can continue to pollute with impunity while we pay the price.

Do your part! The masses are more ready and willing to sacrifice themselves to “save the Earth” than the elites, just as planned (Aftermath News, 2007).

A lawsuit, filed in New York’s federal district court using a common law public-nuisance petition, alleges that the corporations it names are “the five largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the US and are among the largest in the world.” These five - the energy firms American Electric Power, Southern Company, Xcel Energy, Cinergy and the Tennessee Valley Authority - emit approximately 10 per cent of the US’s annual carbon dioxide emissions. These emissions contribute directly to climate change, which, the suit alleges, could lead to severe environmental and health impacts, including a doubling of heat-related deaths in Los Angeles. The suit claims that the melting of the snows that feed California’s water supply could lead to water shortages that would “harm residents, hurt agriculture, disrupt other businesses, cut the source of hydroelectric power and significantly increase the damage caused by wildfires.” The suit points out that means for reducing carbon dioxide emissions are both affordable and available (Red Pepper, 2004).

This does not even take into account the amount of fuel wasted on corporate/government junkets. Here is a 22 page document posted on USA Today that outlines the 2004 corporate plane usage by federal government officials. One would think that our government officials would take heed to the global warming problem and use these planes for important official business in order to save fuel and help protect the environment. Notice that while perusing the document “fund raising” and “campaign” trips comprise the majority of these flights.

And by all means let’s let Mexican trucks roll right through our country courtesy of NAFTA.

In 2005, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) published a report on Mexican truck traffic in regards to the first phase of the trucking provision. Their findings report the following air pollution concerns: an extra 50 tons of NOx and 2.5 tons of particulate matter a day will be added to California’s South Coast Air Basin 66% of Mexican trucks are older (pre-1993) diesel models and do not have electronic fuel injection 25% are diesel trucks older than 1979 having extremely high emissions of NOx and particulate matter unlike the US, Mexico does not require trucks to use ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel (The Airzone Blog, 2007)

Are you feeling like a sacrificial lamb yet? Can you justify squeezing the last drop of dignity from our nation’s poor as we limit their ability to own a vehicle, heat their homes with wood, and provide for their families just so the corporations as well as our corporate-owned government officials don’t have to limit their gluttonous use of fossil fuels? I cannot. I am sickened by it. The system is broken. We are like sacrificial lambs slain on the altar of globalization.

References:

Aftermath News. (2007). Retrieved from: http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/category/social-engineering/
Red Pepper. (2004). Retrieved from: http://www.redpepper.org.uk/article232.html
The Airzone Blog. (2007). Retrieved from: http://www.cleanairsys.com/airzone-blog/2007/09/diesel-long-haul-trucks-from-mexico.html
USA Today. (2004). Retrieved from: http://www.usatoday.com/plane_rides/2004v3.pdf?loc=interstitialskip

Myth of ‘thousands’ of UNIPCC climate scientists

Scoop
6 November 2007

Press Release: New Zealand Climate Science Coalition
Debunking the myth of ‘thousands’ of UNIPCC climate scientists

“The time is well overdue to destroy the myth that there are ‘thousands’ of scientists supporting claims of catastrophic global warming,” says Owen McShane, chair of the policy panel of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.

“One of our people, John McLean, of Melbourne, has just completed an extensive analysis of the recent report of Working Group 1 of the Fourth Assessment Report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He found in the critical Chapter 9, there were only five reviewers, none of whom had impeccable credibility, who explicitly endorsed the claim that humans have a significant influence on climate.

“John’s comprehensive analysis is available on the coalition’s website:
LINK

“It should be read by everyone who has been misguided into fears for the future of our planet, and those who will have to meet the costs of the unnecessary carbon charges that are about to inflate the costs of so many of the necessities of modern life.

“Especially, it should be read by politicians, news media editors and zealots like Jim Footner of Greenpeace,” said Mr McShane.

Chinese growth 'to overtake US'

By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor in Washington

Last Updated: 5:35pm BST 19/10/2007

telegraph - uk

For the first time in modern history, China will next year contribute more to global economic growth than the United States.

Dollar dives as US slump spreads

IMF says credit crunch may persist for months

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Did the Fed hit the brakes too hard?

	China, India and Russia combined have already 'accounted for one half of global growth'

The landmark moment was predicted yesterday by the International Monetary Fund and is the latest illustration of the fast-growing Asian country's importance to the world economy.

While China's economy is still far smaller than America's, it has overtaken the UK as the world's fourth biggest economy. With the IMF projecting 10pc growth this year, the country will pump more new money into the global system next year than the US, which is expected to grow by just 1.9pc.

If the forecasts spelled out in the IMF's World Economic Outlook prove correct (and the institution did not foresee the recent credit crunch), China's continued resilience will come at just the right time for the global economy, as the developed world enters a period of slower growth.

It is what many have called the "happy handover" scenario and is already taking place as China, India and Russia combined have already "accounted for one half of global growth over the past year".

As the IMF points out in its biannual report, the US and western European economies are facing a major slowdown. It has made major cuts to growth forecasts for the developed world. Worse could be in store, according to the IMF's chief economist Simon Johnson.

"The principal risk going forward is that prolonged disruptions in financial markets and a possible weakening of asset prices and confidence could have a more severe impact on economic activity than anticipated in our baseline projections," he said.

There are reasons to mark the 1987 crash

Darling in Washington spotlight at IMF

Eastern Europe to reap its own sub-prime crisis

The main worry is that the credit crunch, in which concerns about the US housing market have caused major jitters about other kinds of debt, persists for longer than another few months.

Mr Johnson compared the pre-crunch markets to a "forest that has not seen a fire in many years", adding: "When problems ignited in the US sub-prime mortgage market, the fire 'jumped' in surprising ways to other areas."

This meant the "fire" spread to the wider credit markets in the US and further afield, including the UK, to bank lending and to commercial paper markets, where companies borrow. Even further cuts in interest rates might not be enough to bring confidence back, the IMF warned. However, while interest rate cuts seem likely in many countries, it also emphasised that inflation remains a threat with oil prices at record highs.

Food prices will also remain high because of increased demand, poor harvests, and global warming, which has contributed to falling crop yields and to arable land being diverted for biofuels.

The IMF said yesterday it was beginning a major study into the economics of global warming.

Climate change disaster is upon us, warns UN

Julian Borger
The Guardian
October 5 2007

A record number of floods, droughts and storms around the world this year amount to a climate change “mega disaster”, the United Nation’s emergency relief coordinator, Sir John Holmes, has warned.

Sir John, a British diplomat who is also known as the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said dire predictions about the impact of global warming on humanity were already coming true.

“We are seeing the effects of climate change. Any year can be a freak but the pattern looks pretty clear to be honest. That’s why we’re trying … to say, of course you’ve got to deal with mitigation of emissions, but this is here and now, this is with us already,” he said.

As a measure of the worsening situation, Ocha, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - part of the UN secretariat that employs Sir John - has issued 13 emergency “flash” appeals so far this year. The number is three more than in 2005, which held the previous record.

Two years ago only half the international disasters dealt with by Ocha had anything to do with the climate; this year all but one of the 13 emergency appeals is climate-related. “And 2007 is not finished. We will certainly have more by the end of the year, I fear,” added Sir John, who is in charge of channelling international relief efforts to disaster areas.

More appeals were likely in the coming weeks, as floods hit west Africa. “All these events on their own didn’t have massive death tolls, but if you add all these little disasters together you get a mega disaster,” he said.

The only one of this year’s emergency appeals not connected to the climate was an earthquake in Peru, in August. The others arose after an unprecedented string of catastrophic floods across much of Africa, south Asia and North Korea, and followed severe drought in southern Africa, Nicaragua’s category-five hurricane, and extreme climate conditions in Bolivia, which brought both drought and floods.

The Ocha appeals represent the tip of an iceberg since they are launched only with the agreement of the affected country. India was badly affected by floods that hit the rest of the Asian region in July. But unlike its neighbour, Pakistan, India did not call on the UN for help.

Ocha believes that 66 million people were made homeless or were otherwise affected across south Asia. The lives of several million more people were turned upside down across Africa. Sudan, Mozambique, Madagascar, Zambia and Uganda experienced disastrous floods, and Swaziland and Lesotho declared emergencies because of severe drought that reduced harvests by half.

The latest appeal from Ocha was launched yesterday, to try to raise emergency relief funds for Ghana, where more than 400,000 people are reported to be homeless as a result of flooding. Appeals may also be started for Togo and Burkina Faso.

“The flooding in Africa just now is the worst anyone can remember,” Sir John said, expressing frustration at how little media attention in the west was being devoted to what he terms creeping climatic catastrophe.

Flooding is likely to be common for a warming planet, and climate change has a double effect - causing an increase in the frequency of storms, while higher atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide curb the ability of plants to draw groundwater.

A climate-change summit is to be held in Bali in December, with the aim of agreeing the principles of a new international treaty to replace Kyoto, the accord that expires in 2012. But the talks face determined US opposition to mandatory emissions targets, and most climate negotiators doubt a real breakthrough can be achieved before the Bush government leaves office in 2009.

Sir John argues that whatever is done on greenhouse gas emissions, money has to be spent now on mitigating the impact that climate change is already having. “You can’t actually stop disasters happening but you can do a lot to reduce their impact and reduce people’s vulnerability to them by making sure people don’t live on the coast or river plains, and that roads are raised and dams are in reasonable shape.”

According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is leading research on the issue, global warming will disrupt and potentially devastate the lives of billions of people.

And, just as global warming starts to make itself felt, there are signs that “donor fatigue” has set in. Of about $338m (£166m) requested for Ocha’s 13 flash appeals this year, only $114m has so far come from donors.

Fear of a global 'coldening'

Tim Blair
Australian Sunday Telegraph
Sunday, July 15, 2007

LAST month Australians endured our coldest June since 1950. Imagine that; all those trillions of tonnes of evil carbon we've horked up into the atmosphere over six decades of rampant industrialisation, and we're still getting the same icy weather we got during the Cold War.

Not that June should be presented as evidence that global warming isn't happening, or that we're causing it. Relying on such a tiny sample would be unscientific and wrong, even if it involves an entire freakin' continent's weather patterns throughout the course of a whole month, for Christ's sake.

No such foolishness will be indulged in here.

Sadly, those who believe in global warming - and who would compel us also to believe - aren't similarly constrained. A few hot days are all they ever need to get the global warming bandwagon rolling; evidently it's solar powered. Here, for example, is an Australian Associated Press report on May's weather, which in places was a little warmer than usual:

"Climate change gave much of Australia's drought-stricken east coast its warmest May on record, weather experts say.

"Global warming and an absence of significant cold changes had driven temperatures well above the monthly average, said meteorologist Matt Pearce.

According to Mr Pearce, May's temperatures were "yet another sign of the widespread climate change that we are seeing unfold across the globe."

If that's the case, shouldn't June's cold weather - coldest since 1950, remember - be a sign that widespread climate change isn't unfolding across the globe? We're using the same data here; one month's weather. And, in fact, the June sample is Australia-wide while May only highlights the east coast. Fear the dawn of a great "coldening"!

While Australia freezes, it's kinda hot in California. Again, local toastiness is evidence of global warming; one San Francisco Chronicle writer this week referred glibly to their "global-warming-heated summer".

What phenomenon was responsible for previous summers? Maybe they got by on the superheated fumes radiating off Lateline host Tony Jones.

Snow cone Tone hosted an in-studio discussion Thursday night after the ABC presented The Great Global Warming Swindle, and he was hotter than a Christina Aguilera video. "Welcome to our debate on this deeply flawed and utterly mistaken documentary, which is wrong in every regard and was made by a zombie," Jones said in introduction (I'm only lightly paraphrasing).

During an interview with filmmaker Martin Durkin Tone was visibly sweating; no easy achievement during a typical summer in the UK, to where he'd flown for his heated little chat. Perhaps Tone was anticipating the phantom British summer forecast by The Independent's environment editor, Michael McCarthy, in April:

"The possibility is growing that Britain in 2007 may experience a summer of unheard-of high temperatures, with the thermometer even reaching 40C, or 104F, a level never recorded in history.

"This would be quite outside all historical experience, but entirely consistent with predictions of climate change."

As Wimbledon watchers would be aware, what with the rainiest tournament since Jimmy Connors defeated John McEnroe in 1982, those unheard-of high temperatures remain unheard-of. Someone might conclude, therefore, that the not-hot summer is not entirely consistent with predictions of climate change.

But climate change is like Michael Moore's tracksuit - it can fit anyone. In 2005, Greenpeace rep Steven Guilbeault helpfully explained: "Global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter, that's what we're dealing with."

What we're dealing with, apparently, is weather.

What will the weather be like 100 years from now? Don't ask Britain's Guardian, which, like the Independent, is full of Warmin' Normans whose warm warnings never come true. "It could be time to say goodbye to defining features of British life," the paper claimed a few months ago, "like rainy picnics and cloudy sunbathing . . ."

Other defining features of British life - screaming, inaccurate nonsense from the Guardian, for example - will never be farewelled. Cue wet Wimbledon, the coldest day for Test match cricket (7.4C) in English history, and this BBC online headline: "Where has the UK's summer gone?"

Maybe it migrated to Australia, like Augustus Owsley Stanley III, the American LSD enthusiast and manufacturer.

Possibly influenced by his product, Owsley moved to outback Queensland about twenty years ago, reportedly convinced that imminent global warming would cause - in the tradition of warm meaning cold - the whole Northern Hemisphere to be covered with ice.

Owsley, now 72, is still in Queensland, and likely not a little confused. Things didn't exactly turn out as predicted. While his former Californian haunts melt due to "global warming", this year Queensland has gone frosty. Townsville's June was its coldest since 1940; June 24 saw the coldest Brisbane morning on record.

Think of these little factoids the next time your read a report linking a hot day or month or year to global warming. And, if you run into this Owsley bloke, please ask him to quit adding things to environmentalists' water supplies.

Climate Expert Questions Gore's Global Warming Campaign Greg Flakus

Greg Flakus
VOA
Thursday, July 12, 2007

This past weekend concerts took place around the world to focus attention on the problem of global warming, which former U.S. Vice President Al Gore says is the greatest single threat facing humankind today. Most of the world's scientists agree that it is a problem and that it is largely caused by human use of fossil fuels, which produce so-called greenhouse gases that trap the Earth's heat. Al Gore and scientists who wrote the United Nations report on climate change say the debate is over and the time has come to act. But some prominent climate scientists are objecting to that, claiming that the debate has yet to even begin. VOA's Greg Flakus recently spoke to one of them and filed this report from Fort Collins, Colorado.

In Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, the dangers presented by global warming are shown in graphic fashion, with photos, maps and charts. In his view, there is no time to lose in addressing global warming.

GORE: "That is what is at stake, our ability to live on planet Earth."

The poster and cover art for the movie show a huge hurricane coming out of a smoke stack. But that image and much of what Al Gore presents in the film is rejected by one of the most respected men in the field of climate studies in the United States.

William Gray, 77, the principal force behind the annual hurricane forecasts done by Colorado State University's School of Atmospheric Science, has little good to say about Gore and his movie.

"He is making statements that I could never make. He is making assumptions that are just not true. I think there are many factual errors in his movie," he said.

Gray rejects Gore's assertion that hurricanes are becoming more frequent and more intense as a result of global warming. A number of other scientists, even some who support Gore's position in general, have also questioned some of the claims made in the movie.

But not William Gray. He does not dispute that the world is warming, but he does not see it as a crisis and he does not think emissions of CO2, methane and other gases have much to do with it.

"Yes, we have seen some global warming. I think it is primarily natural due to the global ocean circulation features," he added.

Gray says the current warming trend is part of a natural cycle and that the world may soon enter a cooling phase.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently reported that climate change is accelerating even faster than had previously been predicted, adding to the urgent need to take action. But Gray and other critics say these predictions are based on unreliable computer models. He says the IPCC has a political agenda and that skeptics are kept out of the discussion.

"The IPCC and all these reports, I have been over 55 years working in the field and they never have come to me one time," he said. "I have just been isolated and I know other colleagues of mine, who I respect for their knowledge. They never consulted them either. If they know how you think, they just leave you alone and go on."

IPCC scientists reject such characterization of their consensus view and defend computer modeling as a way of understanding how greenhouse gases are affecting climate.

Gray believes the cutbacks in fossil fuel use advocated by the consensus scientists would hurt the economies of the United States and other industrialized nations and, in the end, do little or nothing to stop global warming. He says all the attention focused on global warming is distracting people from the world's real problems.

"We have so many other important problems around the world that are much more critical," he explained. "For instance, poverty, AIDS, terrorism, all these problems we have in the world. To me this global warming is sort of a red herring. They have been saying it is the greatest problem facing mankind now. That is a gross exaggeration."

William Gray plans to write a book to refute Gore's and other global warming activists' arguments. He says he and other skeptics have been shunted aside and dismissed as "global warming deniers." Critics also claim the skeptics are financed by large oil companies, but William Gray says he has never taken any money from the energy industry.

While he may not have convinced some of the scientists who believe in human-induced global warming, he may yet have a chance to make his case. Some scientists from the global warming camp are now saying that debate should be allowed. As Gray and other skeptics have argued, science is advanced through constant questioning and testing of hypotheses, not by consensus.